Playlist for the Dead by Michelle Falkoff

Here’s what Sam knows: There was a party. There was a fight. The next morning, Sam’s best friend, Hayden, was dead. All he left Sam was a playlist of songs—and a note, saying that he took his own life. But what Sam doesn’t know is: Why?To figure out what happened, Sam has to rely on the playlist and his own memory. But the more he listens, the more he realizes that his memory isn’t as reliable as he thought. Especially when someone claiming to be Hayden starts sending him cryptic messages, and a series of violent attacks begins on the bullies who made Hayden’s life hell. Sam knows he has to face up to what happened the night Hayden killed himself. But it’s only by taking out his earbuds and opening his eyes to the people around him—including an eccentric, unpredictable girl who’s got secrets, too—that Sam will finally be able to piece together his best friend’s story. And maybe have a chance to change his own.

Just the title of the book and the synopsis of it has me start reading Playlist for the Dead. It seemed mysterious, philosophical and coming of age kind of book. But this was a good example of “Don’t judge a book by it’s synopsis” cause the story doesn’t do any justice to the initial excitement one feels. I found it boring and had to literally make myself finish reading it.

The characters are very flat. I couldn’t connect to any of them and it was difficult to understand why the characters acted the way they did. The main protagonist was kind of annoying and I didn’t feel his character grew in anyway by the end of the book. The other characters just existed. The characters committed crime and got away with it which I didn’t like. No matter what sad and hard life has been with you that doesn’t give you an excuse to do bad things to others. Also the playlist had no connection to the storyline. Sam, himself says it couple of times in the book that he wasn’t able to figure out the connection between Hayden’s death and the playlist and neither could I.